Tictac
by Is0lde
Summary: Yes, I'm perfectly aware of the in the movie, Cypher comes to his agreement with Smith at a fancy restaurant. Therefore, this is kind of AU. This is my take on everything. R&R, people! Things don't correct themselves! Read author's note inside.


_(author's note: My second Matrix fanfiction! This one is a bit more serious than my first, as you might notice...  
__Anyway, this is MY take on what happened when Smith recruited Cypher, or, as he was called before he was unplugged, Mr Reagan. Take it or leave it. I like the idea of Cypher being tortured and ultimately brainwashed... :D_

_Oh, and remember to R&R!)_

---

He picked up the phone but got nothing but horrid silence.

"... hello?"

After having spoken himself, he could hear no more. He carefully placed the receiver on the white, clinically clean table again. Between the likewise white walls, the sound bounced back and forth, until it escalated, ultimately sounding like a gunshot. Then it died, vanished, as though it had never been there in the first place.

Again, there was only silence.

He sweated. But the temperature wasn't at all high; come to think of it, it wasn't really cold either. The air felt like some sort of nothingness, wrapping him in an inconsequent existence. It crept up on him like small bugs and made him feel a constant discomfort not unlike the one you feel when you're drowning.

Up from the corners of the room, shadows made their silent way towards him. He wasn't entirely sure of whether they were products of the transparent substance he'd been given in a shot earlier on, or if they were in fact real forms of matter, trying to get close enough to strangle him with their long, slender arms and tentacles.

The small precious pearls of sweat dripped, no, ran down his forehead and naked upper body. The chair he was sitting on felt torrid, but somehow, he knew it was as freezing as the expected snow in late December. That was almost the only thing he knew for certain right now. Everything else was slowly getting lost in the periphery of his damaged psyche, as the seconds were ticking away on the big, mute clock that had been nailed to the wall in front of him.

A sudden crackle broke the silence. He looked around the cubical-shaped room. Where had the sound originated? After a few seconds of blissful ignorance, a cold, heartless voice rang through him, through everything, and it seemed to be coming from all directions at once. This was, of course, an impossibility. He knew that. But somehow, that didn't seem to be a matter of consideration in here.

The voice enfolded him in a crystalline daze, and he felt his heart turning into stone inside his chest when the sound penetrated his fragile human ears.

"You know why you're here," the voice spoke monotonically. "You know why you've been dragged here, why you've been taken by force and yet seduced to come, like a whore by a violent customer. _You know_."

His lips felt dry, his throat ripped asunder by an unseen knife. Something was still running down his body.  
He wondered if it was blood.  
  
No, it wasn't blood. It tasted of salt, like the sensation of an ocean, when it reached his mouth.

His hands were paralysed, but he could still feel the blood pulsating in them, circulating, taking its natural course. As if nothing was different. As if he was still lying on the sofa in his urban home, watching Days of Our Lives on the telly. But he couldn't lift them to his forehead to dry off the sweat.

He suddenly realised that everything had gone quite once more. The voice was gone.

Was this it, then? Would he be sitting here forever, sweat running down his defenceless body in this poorly lit room, until this carnal temple dried and became but ashes and old forgotten bones?

His memories were clouded. He seemed to recall hid abduction... black, long and probably very expensive cars, coming against him. He remembered them most of all. And the men who had got out of them... the men that had seemed to be made out of only darkness and evil.

Yes. That was what he remembered. Fragments of pieces from an unseen puzzle, of such a magnitude he would never see the whole picture no matter how long he tried to. And now, here he sat, lit only by greenish, torn fluorescent tubes in the ceiling of this small, claustrophobically frightening cube. The centre of this his cage was himself, naked flesh pressed against cold steel, with his hands pressed against the table with an invisible glue.

There was no escape. No way out. He was entirely cut off from the world outside, not knowing anything about what time it was. It could be the most beautiful sunrise outside for all he knew. He couldn't get the clock on the wall to show him the real time of day, because it had only one pointer – the one that showed seconds. It almost made him go crazy with its soundless ticking, because now, it rang even more loudly inside him instead.

Tic-tac, tic-tac, tic-tac, tic-tac. That was his life ticking away, and he knew it. And he had no clue as to how much time he had left alive.

A squeaky sound was heard, painfully loud. The recoil of a life being spilt.

He understood that it had been the sound of a door opening, but he found this very strange. He hadn't seen a door in all his time here – which for all he knew could be either three hours or three full years.

Abruptly, he heard a tapping echoing behind him. _Cold_ steps, as though they had, in fact, an own language that they spoke with terrible clarity. His heart pounding like crazy, he tried peeking backwards, as hard as he could. His neck was paralysed along with his hands – his whole body, it would seem – so his attempts were really quite useless. He could only see something black nearing his seat, slowly, and yet persistently. Its steps were heavy, but at the same time curiously nonchalant, almost bantering. He couldn't make this work in his head.

"So here's our guest. Just where I left you."

The voice was cold like the first winter breeze of the autumn, promising a merciless winter. It caressed him softly and made his entire being hurt like hell. His perspiration was even more abundant now than earlier. Pure chill running down his scorching hot future carcass.

The person – if you really could call such a being a person – that had just walked in had now come forth from behind him. He could now see that it was a middle-aged man wearing a black suite. He also had a white shirt on, a black tie, and the shoes who had spoken before were likewise black and shiny.

_Vanity_, he though to himself.  
_Vanity becomes him._

The man inspected him from head to toe, and his relentless gaze burned gaping holes in him. He opened his mouth and exhaled. Breath as cold as winter. Liquid cold. Thereafter, he spoke again.

"How have you been spending your seconds in here? Haven't you felt very, very alone? All that could change. You could get out, return to your puny, insignificant and utterly meaningless life. You could escape your... cell. All you have to do is to give us what we want."

There was a great amount of loathing in his voice when he spoke.

_He really hates me_, he thought tiredly. _What is it I've done, exactly?_

"We know for a fact that you've lately come in contact, one way or the other, with one of the most dangerous criminals this earth has ever known. We're looking for a way to find this delinquent, this... menace. We need to eliminate him so that we can provide safety for the rest of this your world. It would be... _tragic_ if we were to fail in our mission." The man paused. He corrected his own tie in a gruesome manner; tilting his head to the left, he pulled it, thus creating a cracking sound in his neck. Then, he straightened himself up. "We know you've met with him. We know how he contacted you. We also believe we have a pretty fair idea of what you spoke of. What we need your help with, though, concerns the one and only aspect of this problem that we have yet to solve. _Where is he? Where is Morpheus?_"

Chill grabbed hold of his heart. The body had begun some sort of demonstrative death-process, where every organ including the heart seemed to stop working. That was, at least, what it felt like for the man in the steel chair. The edge of the seat cut into his skin.

He didn't know where to look when he spoke with this... person. Sunglasses covered the man's eyes, but he could still feel them focusing on him, every last second. Like cameras, monitoring every move. A predator observing its bait, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

He tried to open his mouth. It still felt dry, and a not so pleasant odour rose to his nostrils when he opened it. He hadn't got his toothbrush with him at the time of the abduction. There hadn't really been any time to.  
His tongue, feeling like a paper in his mouth, moved unwillingly.

"Wh... who... who are you?"

The man smiled unpleasantly. "You may call us agents. My name is Agent Smith," said the man, a disgusted tone in his voice. "But that isn't relevant to this issue. The only thing that's remotely interesting at this moment is... the whereabouts of Morpheus." He paused again. He was not without a sense for the dramatic, which was a funny thought considering he was just a consistency of numbers. Code.

Code. The word glinted in the captive's mind, like an old memory. One of those that always have to surface, no matter how much you try to repress it.

"I... don't know what you're talking about." The words seemingly came through a thick fog, a haze.

Agent Smith clenched his jaw and his face turned a dark shade of purple. Before he knew it, the agent was right by his side, his hand holding a strong grip on his throat.

"I don't like games," the agent wheezed. The veins near his temple throbbed violently; he seemed to be ready to throw himself over his bait any time now, and rip it to pieces using only his hands and teeth. But after he'd spoken, he fell back, seemingly his old, old self again.

"Listen carefully," said Smith as though they were two old friends talking about the joys of gardening. "If you want to waste your time with this nonsense, then by all means go ahead. But every time you defy us, the more time is added to your time here in this cell. Think about it. Do you like it that much? Because you know, we can keep you alive as long as possible. And every second means more torment." The agent's hand was still locked in a firm grip around his throat, but he still managed to shrug, somehow. "But then again, what do I know. Maybe you enjoy small, scary cages. In that case, you'll have a long time to think about what's the more intelligent decision to make in this situation."

He felt the agent's eyes piercing through him, merciless. His thoughts were still a bit clouded, and it was getting harder and harder distinguishing thoughts from spoken words... fantasy from reality.

Should he perhaps talk? Spill the word? Tell them everything he knew? Or rather, everything he remembered. He wasn't sure_ what_ he actually knew any more. What he recalled was very little, and he was beginning to think that his recollections were just hallucinations caused by him being locked up too long in this place. All isolation and no concentration make me a crazy boy, he thought haphazardly.

What he thought of as memories seemed very strange in the light of day. Or rather, in the light of broken fluorescent tubes in the ceiling.

He made another attempt to speak.

"I... I don't know... I mean, I don't..." His throat hurt. Smith still observed him coldly. But then, unexpectedly, he started laughing. It was an empty laugh – empty of everything even remotely like feelings. When the burly laugh had finally died, he let go of the chair-bound man's throat.

"Well, like I said, it's up to you. Your choice entirely. But time, and our patience, is running out. Slowly, cautiously, every second goes to its final and inevitable death. Do what pleases you. Just keep in mind that the seconds you take for granted, they make up your life. They are what lives are built from, what they are made of. And they're coming to an end."

Agent Smith turned around, and walked away with his nonchalant steps. A squeak was heard.

He thought the agent had left the room, in whatever way he'd entered it in the first place. But after a few silent seconds had passed, his voice sounded yet again. This time, there was amusement in his tone. Subtle, and yet very obvious.

"Tic-tac, Mr Reagan. Tic-tac."

A silent bang sounded, and he realised the agent was gone.

Should he be glad about the postponement? Or should he maybe be even more afraid? He didn't know for certain. But here he was, alone again.

He could hear Smith's last words pounding in his head like a drum. Over and over and over again they sounded.

_Tic-tac, Mr Reagan._  
_Tic-tac._


End file.
